This Wizards team has gone through a lot of adversity this year, some of it unimaginable. Poor them. People are dying around the world and not by choice. These guys get paid to play basketball. Suck it up.

More and more this team is playing like they just don’t care. It’s not the first time this has happened. Probably won’t be the last. But Wednesday night’s game against the New York Knicks seemed like more of a disgrace than efforts we’ve seen before.

I’ve said that Ernie Grunfeld can’t make drastic change fast enough. The associated anxiousness continues to mount by the day and will continue to do so up until the February 18th trade deadline, unless something happens before then.

When it goes down, how will I find out? Twitter? Text? G-Chat? Will Ric Bucher’s shiny doll hair pop up on my HDTV to tell me that it has all come to an end? Will I wake up one morning to find Marc Stein whispering in my ear, “Caron Butler for Marcus Camby and Antawn Jamison for Zydrunas Ilgauskas, both straight up” followed by him punching me in the mouth?

These are the things that haunt my slumber and twist my stomach. And they all feel plausible.

Ok, back to the Knicks game. Even though they clearly started to lose the game in the third quarter, I was pretty incensed when watching the fourth quarter “melt,” as Flip Saunders called it.

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Crittenton most definitely on the trade block

The Washington Post’s Michael Lee first tweeted almost a week ago, “Interesting angle w/Crittenton suspension. He could become a viable/valuable trade chip by Feb. 18 since a team won’t have to pay him.”

And we figured as much since the previous day, in his press conference addressing the Arenas/Crittenton suspensions for the rest of the year, Ernie Grunfeld indicated that there were no restrictions in discussing a trade of either with another team.

On late Tuesday, ESPN’s Chris Sheridan reported the same thing, with a couple more details.

#FreeMikeJames

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{Sam Cassell measures Earl Boykins next to a kid}

The Wizards have found a lot of ways to lose games this season. Monday’s 99-88 loss to the Boston Celtics wasn’t as disheartening as most of them. So, I guess you can chalk up another moral victory on the penitentiary walls of your Washington Wizards basketball fandom. Congrats.

Most fingers are pointing toward the fourth quarter and justifiably citing it as the main culprit. In the period, the Wizards only mustered 10 points to the 25 of the Celtics. Rasheed Wallace scored eight points by himself, and combined with Tony Allen, the duo put up 14 points and seven rebounds in the final period. Starters Paul Pierce (ankle injury) and Kendrick Perkins didn’t play in the last 12 minutes and Rajon Rondo and Kevin Garnett only played six minutes apiece in the fourth.

The Celtics bench came alive to save the day. Otherwise, Boston looked sloppy and old. Cherish that 2008 championship Celtics fans, it will be the only title you see from your current squad.

Meanwhile, the Wizards managed just one assist while making only two their last 18 shots of the game.  Of course, they just had one assist to eight made field-goals in the third quarter. At halftime the Wizards had 13 assists on 18 made field-goals. So, if you don’t feel like doing math, they only had two assists to 10 made FGs in the entire second half and 15 assists to 28 FGs for the game.

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Learning to be a better role model

by Gilbert Jay Arenas, Jr.

The Post suggested on Dec. 31 that I send a message to young fans “about guns being neither glamorous nor desirable.” I am grateful for the opportunity to do something good in the face of the very bad situation I created.

I have done a number of things wrong recently. I violated D.C. gun laws and the NBA’s ban on firearms on league property, and I damaged the image of the NBA and its players. I reacted badly to the aftermath and made fun of inaccurate media reports, which looked as though I was making light of a serious situation. And I gave Commissioner David Stern good reason to suspend me from the game, which put my teammates in a tough position and let down our fans and Mrs. Irene Pollin, the widow of longtime Wizards owner Abe Pollin.

I understand the importance of teaching nonviolence to kids in today’s world. Guns and violence are serious problems, not joking matters — a lesson that’s been brought home to me over the past few weeks. I thought about this when I pleaded guilty as charged in court and when I accepted my NBA suspension without challenge.

That message of nonviolence will be front and center as I try to rebuild my relationship with young people in the D.C. area. I know that won’t happen overnight, and that it will happen only if I show through my actions that I am truly sorry and have learned from my mistakes.

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Prior to the Wizards-Knicks game, Rashad Mobley of Hoops Addict and myself stopped to chat with Jonathan Bender of the New York Knicks, a man on a long-shot comeback attempt. Rashad has his piece posted on Hoops Addict, mine is posted below.

Jonathan Bender broke Michael Jordan’s McDonald’s All-American game scoring record when he dropped 31 points in the 1999 game, besting his Airness by one point.

That performance was on the stage Bender needed to forgo his verbal commitment to Mississippi State University and enter the NBA draft, becoming who I believe is the first modern-day high school player to jump to the NBA after actually committing to a school. They say Kobe Bryant would have gone to Duke, but he never offered his commitment. Today, despite being called one of the 20 biggest busts in modern NBA draft history by Sports Illustrated in 2005, Bender doesn’t think twice about the choice he made over 10 years ago to follow in the prep-to-pros footsteps of those such as Kevin Garnett.

“Once I made the decision, it was made,” Bender said without hesitation from the Knicks locker room before last Saturday’s match-up against the Wizards.

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Mike Miller doesn’t want to be your team’s leading scorer. And he doesn’t want to listen to others who have implored him to be more aggressive on offense, including his coach.

This season, almost as much as Miller has said, “It is what it is,” if not more, he has pragmatically relayed, “I pick my spots,” as if it were ingrained into his basketball dogma.

Miller should be lauded for his selflessness, on top of his constant willingness to be first off the bench to support his teammates coming into a timeout or him being a primary proponent of hustle on the court. Passing is the “right way to play basketball” says Miller. Nothing wrong with that school of thought. Dude is honorable.

But as good as his intentions are, Miller’s methods have, at times, served as a detriment to his team. The drives ending right at the rim only to kick the ball backwards to the perimeter. The passed up open shots where Miller, the best shooter on the team, makes the extra pass just to get the ball “poppin’.” Players with his skill shouldn’t be such delegates.

Is it a coincidence that in Saturday’s game against the Knicks where Miller scored a season-high 25 points on the most shots he’s attempted and made (9-15) as a Wizard — also the most threes he’s attempted and made (7-10) — he also dropped a season-high eight assists?

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